The Bird
by Bamboloccia
Summary: After Jane remembers a memory from her childhood she must unlock a mystery of their parent's from decades before. But, the mystery can only be solved by working with her estranged brother.
1. The Box

**The Bird**

 _Part 1_

 _The Box_

Jane smiled as she ran with Kurt in the park. She laughed as she heard a yell from behind, "Slow down!" She looked back behind her as she saw Kurt's red face gasping for air. She laughed harder as she began running faster. She turned her face back around as she caught a glimpse of the large oak tree in front of her. Time began to stop as she fell into a memory.

"Alice! Alice, look at me. Recite to me what I just told you," her father whispered as he gently moved one of her long black curls out of her face. He kneeled down in front of her as he grabbed her arms to move her closer to him. She could tell that he was scared. His low booming voice was calm, but she could tell that there was hesitation in his words.

They were hiding in the cellar of their small house. Her mother held her little brother Ian tightly in the corner of the small room, her hand over his small mouth so he would not scream. The cellar was dark, the only light coming from the small crevices of the door above them. Alice could hear the footsteps of the men above them through the wooden floor. Alice slowly raised her head so that she could meet her father's gaze. She timidly looked into her father's deep brown eyes and whimpered in fear.

"No crying," her father demanded. "What are you?"

"Strong," she said quietly.

"Tell me again. What are you?" he whispered, but with power in his voice. He moved his face closer towards her so she could see him more clearly.

"Strong," She whispered a little more earnestly.

"Again," her father pressed.

"Strong," she said with more confidence as she wiped the tear that ran down her face.

"Now tell me what I told you. We don't have much time left before they find us," her father commanded.

"Take Ian and the box and run outside. Run as fast as we can towards the river. When we get to the river we bury the box by one of the trees. Mark the tree so I can find it later. Once the box is hidden we both hide behind the trees and wait until it is dark outside. After that...we come back," Alice uttered softly as she tried to remember each word her father told her earlier.

"Good, No matter what happens…you don't come back until dark. Understood?" he asked.

"Understood," she confirmed as her father placed the box into her hands.

"Alice, this box contains information that needs to be kept hidden from bad people. We can't let the bad people ever know about where the box is. If they find you can never let them know. You can never let anyone know." he added. The small stream of light from the cracks of the door above hit the top of the wooden box to reveal a wooden carving of a bird in flight.

"Your mother and I will distract the men above us. We will tell the men that this box is in the other room. When you hear the men's footsteps go into the other room you need quietly open the door and quietly walk outside with your brother. Once you are outside you run as fast as you can to the river," he ordered. He let go of her shoulders as he ushered his wife to come. Her mother hushed Ian as she slowly moved her hand from off of his mouth.

"Alice, come over here and sit by Ian in the corner," her mother whispered lovingly. Alice walked over to her mother as she stood up. Her mother gave her a quick hug as she whispered in her ear, "I love you my little bird."

Her father quietly opened the cellar door and they both climbed up the latter to the room above. The door creaked as the door closed behind them as she started to hear the men shout as their footsteps thumped louder.

She placed her hand on Ian's mouth again. She held him tightly as she closed her eyes. She heard her father speak from above, "The box is in the other room. Come with me and I will give it to you."

She waited until she could hear the footsteps go into the other room before she whispered to her brother. "Come on, Ian. Let's go."

She climbed the latter slowly with the box in her left hand as her brother followed from behind. She carefully pushed the door open and crawled out to her her living room. She grabbed Ian's hand to pull him up. She shut the door carefully as she tried to make no sound. She grabbed Ian's hand as she made her way to the door outside. She turned the handle carefully so it wouldn't squeak and she and Ian tiptoed outside. She silently closed the door behind them as she turned to Ian. "Run!" she exclaimed.

Their hearts beat through their chests as they ran through the trees and to the river. She looked frantically at all of the trees before she picked a small baobab tree to hide the box. She knelt by the tree and began to dig into the soil with her hands as she yelled at Ian to join her. Once the hole was big enough she placed the box into the ground and quickly buried the box with the soil around her. She grabbed a rock and carved into the tree a small x.

"What do we do now?" Ian asked as he tried to catch his breath.

"We wait," she replied as she leaned her back onto the tree.

They sat in silence as they both worried about their parents inside the house. Only a few minutes went by before they heard gunshots.

Ian screamed loudly as she glanced towards the house in the far distance. She tried to grab Ian's shirt when he stood up, but the shirt slipped out of her fingers as Ian ran towards the house.

"Ian!" she shrieked as she began chasing her brother. She saw the front door of their house open from afar as two large muscular men walked outside. "Ian, No!" She screamed louder, but it was too late. The men saw them.

The memories began to jumble up for Jane. She could only remember small glimpses of the men grabbing them, the men taking them into their house, and the men showing them their dead parents. Each glimpse of memory the men asked her where the box was, and each time she replied, "What box?"


	2. The Unknown

**Part 2**

 _The Unknown_

The feelings that produce the most fear are not the feelings of surety, but the feelings of the unknown. With surety comes balance and a place to step. With the unknown, you do not know where to stand. As a race, we live hour by hour. Day by day. Piece by piece. Step by step. We are always waiting for the next hour, minute, piece, or step before we move. We wait because it is sure. We try to avoid falling into the dark unknown.

Jane knew the dark unknown. In her first year being 'Jane,' there was no shortage of it. She greeted the darkness every day. She lived countless days in the dark looking for answers - looking for a feeling of surety. With time, Jane received those things. She had finally found her place to step and the darkness now had faded from black to gray. She knew who she was now and she thought she knew her full story. But now, Jane had fallen again into the unknown. Trying again to find a place to plant her foot.

"Jane, are you okay?" Kurt asked as he approached her slowly from behind. Jane shook her head as she tried to come back to reality. Jane had had the occasional thought the past few years about how her parent's died. She just had thought that their murder was just an act of hatred from their government. Now she finally understood exactly how her parents died and it was not the story she was told by Shepherd. 'Why did Shepherd tell me a lie? Why did Roman go along with the lie if he knew all along what had happened?' Jane thought. The only reasonable explanation she could think of is that Roman lied to Shepherd in order to protect what their parent's had left behind. Jane knew that her brother was misguided, but he was never a traitor.

The bird tattoo had never been solved by Patterson or a member of her team. Nothing had ever even registered in the FBI's databases since Jane had been scanned after being found in Times Square. Jane now knew it was because the tattoo didn't have a government secret attached to it. The secret encased in the bird was her own. Roman was one of the masterminds of the tattoos since the beginning of Sandstorm's creation. He was there when the first droplet of ink hit her skin. Her team had thought the bird tattoo replaced the previous design of the leopard to protect Roman's link to Kat Jerret and to Sandstorm. Jane understood now that is not why it had happened. Roman must have added the Jaguar tattoo on purpose to the preliminary tattoo design to give him a way to override it and take it off. This way he would be given a way to add another tattoo to the design. This way he could send a message to Jane. The bird tattoo had been on her for years just waiting for the time that she would finally remember what it meant. Finally, remember to come back to him.

"Jane, are you okay?" Kurt asked again as his words finally started processing in her brain. His muffled words that sounded so far away now became clearer and closer as she jolted out of her memory.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just remembered something. I remembered that my parents had me hide a box with Roman before they were killed and we were kidnapped," Jane explained as each of the words tasted mystery and denial.

"What was in the box?" Kurt asked as he stroked Jane's shoulder to calm her. Kurt could see that his wife was in shock. He had never seen Jane so shaken up before. He had been with her since the beginning. He had seen her in her most vulnerable and lost state and guided her through them. Jane had the same look as the first time they met in the interrogation room. He knew the look, Jane was lost. Lost in a brain that had held so many locked up memories and secrets. It seemed to Kurt as if she was locked in a room full of closed doors with a pile of thousands of keys. Never knowing which key opened which door or what door was her way out. Her life consisted of her trying to open the doors, and if she finally was able to open one of them… it led her to another room of closed doors with another mountain of keys. There was never clarity for Jane's past. Only keys and no door out.

"I don't know. The box, however, had this bird on it," Jane replied as she pointed to the tattoo of the bird on her neck.

"Where did you hide the box?" Kurt wondered as he inched closer his demeanor becoming more rigid.

"I buried it by the river next to my house," Jane answered unsure of what to think. Jane continued, "I doubt that the box is still there anymore. Roman remembers everything now. This is something that he wouldn't leave alone,"

Kurt understood what Jane was saying. The box was probably in her brother's possession by now and all the secrets that came with it. "If there is a chance that Roman doesn't remember about the box, we can't risk him figuring it out. We need to be careful," Kurt explained as he brushed the strand of hair away from the middle of Jane's forehead.

"Roman tattooed the bird on me for a purpose. He made it so that I would come back to him. He left it on me so I would remember after Sandstorm's plan came to an end. He knew he couldn't solve it with Shepherd watching over him or us. He left it there so he knew no matter what happened to me that I would remember. For some reason, he needs me to solve it with him. He wouldn't have permanently stamped it on my skin otherwise," Jane expressed.

"It could just be another one of his games, Jane," Kurt warned.

"Then we play it, Kurt," Jane snapped back.

"He could be anywhere in the world right now. We don't even know how to contact him," Kurt said.

"I think I may know a way," Jane answered.


	3. Little Bird

Part 3

 _Little Bird_

Sometimes we cannot personally explain how we feel in a moment. So we gather facts to make sense of all of our emotions. Our whole existence is the gathering of facts that we more popularly call, "memories". These facts are like a constellation. Similar memories connect to the other. When enough of these facts connect, we create a personal theory. The reasons behind why we do or do not trust someone, to how we predict how someone will act, is because of our personal theories. However, one's theories are only mere perceptions. These perceptions are not always true, so we end up calling them a hunch. It is sometimes easier calling something a hunch than explaining your brain's theory on everything.

Jane had a hunch.

"What way? You have known this whole time how to contact Roman?" Kurt asked angrily. He didn't understand why Jane would keep this a secret for months from him. It seemed very unlike his wife to do such a thing. However, lately, he felt that he didn't know her much anymore. She felt farther away since he asked her to come home from the top of the mountain.

"No, Kurt. I remember my mother telling me something in my memory. She called me, 'little bird'. The box, my neck, and the metal plaque that Roman gave us all have the same exact image of the same bird. The bird symbol must be my mother. The box's engraved bird looked worn. The box was older than I was," Jane explained.

"I don't understand, I thought you were the little bird?" Kurt asked as his brows lowered deeper in confusion. He moved closer to Jane as to hear what she was about to say. There were people hustling around them in the park. The quiet atmosphere that they had been in when running earlier, now had been interrupted. The loud laughter of children playing in the playground in the distance filled the air.

"I am the little bird," Jane confirmed, "The larger image of the bird and on the box is of my mother. The smaller image on the plaque -"

"Little bird," Kurt inserted, his eyes widening as the new revelation started to open his mind. He had always wondered what the bird tattoo meant. He would constantly stroke it when Jane was asleep in the bed next to him. He would trace his finger along the feathers of the bird as he would think about what conspiracy it entailed. There was never a conspiracy, he had more been involved in a familial secret.

"Yes, the smaller bird coming back to the mother bird. It symbolizes coming home and starting from the beginning. Roman's objective has always been to get Remi back. The purpose of the new layer of tattoos was to bring out the secrets that were hidden in our group. To bring out the continued corruption that was still happening," Jane explained as she closed her eyes. She knew that people usually would escape the world when they closed their eyes. She never closed her eyes to escape. The darkness when she closed her eyes felt familiar. The life she had known so far was black with emptiness and questions. The emptiness was always there, but even in emptiness, there are clues to where the light is.

"Roman made the new layer of tattoos to tear us apart and for you to finally return home as Remi," Kurt interjected. Kurt had feared and lived through the fear of Jane leaving him. He, however, had full confidence in who Jane was now. Jane was good, and she would always be good. He knew that even if Jane regained all Remi's memories that she would still be the same person she was now.

"Tearing us apart was part of it the reason he tattooed me, however, it wasn't the underlying reason. It was always more than just tearing us apart. Same thing with the tattoos. There is always more than one secret in one tattoo. There has been more than just one reason why the tattoos glow. The tattoos are a light source," Jane expounded as she smiled. Roman hadn't just been torturing her but had been waiting for Remi to return back to him. The clues that he left wasn't for her to solve. Roman didn't think of Jane as a sister. That is why he was fine torturing her and almost killing her. He could never kill her though. He still felt that Remi was still inside. She may have thought that Remi was dead, but Roman still held out hope that Remi would come back. That is why he left a clue for only Remi to solve. Jane knew that she didn't figure out this clue...Remi did.

Roman still held out hope that Remi would finally emerge again and then they could go back to the beginning before their world's collapsed. Before their parents were murdered. When they were happy. Remi and him would figure out what their parent's left behind, and Remi would finally return back to her parents. Remi would finally return home.

"I don't follow," Kurt replied " Light source for what?" Kurt scratched his beard as he leaned his shoulder onto one of the trees in the park. He looked up at Jane as he awaited her answer.

"When you bring out secrets, lies, or corruption it brings things to light. It lets something unknown finally be known. That has always been the tattoos whole purpose, to shine a light. We have been looking at the new bioluminescent tattoos directly to uncover secrets. We have been looking at the light, but not looking at what it shines out," Jane determined. She looked over at Kurt as she waited for him to understand. She could see the light coming into his blue eyes. She saw the wheels turn in his mind. She could tell he finally understood what she was saying.

"The light emitted has not been looked at," Kurt noted.

"Yes, the light from the tattoos is brighter in places and different colors. The light's reflection would produce different rays. The rays, when shown onto a surface, would produce a series of dots - " Jane began but she was interrupted with Kurt's answer.

"The tattoos would show a constellation," Kurt said.

"Yes, the lights reflection is Roman's clue for me - No, Remi's clue of how to get home," Jane explained.

"Roman's destination is literally written in the stars," Kurt joked as he moved towards Jane and away from the tree he was leaning onto.

"We need Patterson," Jane advised.

"Let's go find your brother," Kurt added as he placed his arm around Jane.


End file.
